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A History of American Literature
As a consequence of this feeling that America should be different, the tendency grew to seek out native subject matter and to cease conscious imitation of English literary models. For the next half century American authors were contending, every now and then, that native themes should occupy their attention, and a good deal of verse and prose was written with this idea in mind. Most of it was more conscientious than interesting, for literature, to be genuinely effective, must be produced not to demonstrate a theory but to express what is honestly in the author’s mind. The first step toward achieving nationality in American writing was, therefore, to achieve new and independent habits of national thinking. The Irish mind, for example, is basically different from the English mind, and Irish literature has therefore a long and beautiful history of its own, in spite of the fact that Ireland is near to England and subject to it. But the Australian is simply a transplanted English-speaking, English-thinking mind, and Australia has consequently produced no literature of which the world is yet aware.
Now Freneau was a naturally independent thinker. He was educated and well read in the best of English and classical literature. But unlike most of his fellow authors, he was not a city man, nor a teacher, preacher, or lawyer. His hands were hardened by the steersman’s wheel and the plow, and doubtless much of his verse – or at least the inspiration for it – came to him on shipboard or in the field rather than in the library. In the midst of the crowd he was an easy man to stir up to fighting pitch. All his war verse shows this. Yet when he was alone and undisturbed he inclined to placid meditation, and he expressed himself in the simplest ways. As a young man he wrote a little poem called “Retirement.” It is the kind of thing that many other eighteenth-century poets – confirmed city dwellers – wrote in moments of temporary world-weariness; but Freneau’s life-story shows that he really meant it:
A cottage I could call my ownRemote from domes of care;A little garden, wall’d with stone,The wall with ivy overgrown,A limpid fountain near,Would more substantial joys afford,More real bliss impartThan all the wealth that misers hoard,Than vanquish’d worlds, or worlds restor’d —Mere cankers of the heart!And there was another poem of his youth which told a secret of his real character. This was “The Power of Fancy,” an imitation of Milton in its form, but genuinely Freneau’s in its sentiment. The best of his later work is really a compound of these suggestions – poems of fancy composed in retirement. Thus he wrote on “The Indian Burying Ground,” interpreting the fact that instead of being buried recumbent as white men are. And thus he wrote in “To a Caty-did,” “The Wild Honeysuckle,” and “On a Honey Bee,” little lyrics of nature and natural life, which were almost the first verse written in America based on native subject matter and expressed in simple, direct, and unpretentious form.
The Indian, when from life releas’d,Again is seated with his friendsAnd shares again the joyous feast,Nathaniel Ames, in one of his early almanacs, recorded soberly:
MAYNow Winters rage abates, now chearful HoursAwake the Spring, and Spring awakes the Flowers.The opening Buds salute the welcome Day,And Earth relenting, feels the genial Ray.The Blossoms blow, the Birds on Bushes sing;And Nature has accomplish’d all the Spring.This was perfectly conventional and perfectly indefinite; not a single flower, bud, blossom, bird, or bush is specified. The six lines amount to a general formula for spring and would apply equally well to Patagonia, Italy, New England, or northern Siberia. Mr. R. Lewis, who wrote on “A Journey from Patapsco to Annapolis” in 1730, improves on this:
First born of Spring, here the Pacone appears.Whose golden Root a silver Blossom rears.In spreading Tufts see there the Crowfoot, blue,On whose green Leaves still shines a globous Dew;Behold the Cinque-foil, with its dazling DyeOf flaming Yellow, wounds the tender Eye.But there enclos’d the grassy Wheat is seenTo heal the aching Sight with cheerful Green.Lewis mentions definite flowers, colors, and characteristics, but he never misses a chance to tuck in a conventional adjective or participle, and he is led by them into weaving the extravagant fancy of an eye made to ache by flaming and dazzling colors, and healed by the cheerful green of the wheat field. In contrast to these, Freneau’s little nature poems are as exact as the second and as simple as the subject on which he writes:
In a branch of willow hidSings the evening Caty-did:From the lofty locust boughFeeding on a drop of dew.In her suit of green array’dHear her singing in the shade,Caty-did, Caty-did, Caty-did.Such simplicity as this does not seem at all remarkable to-day, but if it be compared with the fixed formalities that belonged to almost all the verse of Freneau’s time it will stand out as a remarkable exception.
On account of the two kinds of poetry which Freneau published he has often been given misleading titles by his admirers. Those who have been interested in him mainly or exclusively from the historical point of view have christened him the “Poet of the American Revolution.” This is unfair because of the implication that he gave his best energy to this and had no other right to distinction. Even as a journalist he was more than poet of the Revolution, since he wrote on local and timely themes for many years after its close. This designation does not claim enough for him. The other title is defective for the opposite reason, that it claims too much. This is the “Father of American Poetry.” Such a sweeping phrase ought to be avoided resolutely. It is doubly false, in suggesting that there was no American poetry before he wrote and that everything since has been derived from him. The facts are that he had a native poetic gift which would have led to his writing poetry had there never been a war between the colonies and England, but that when the war came on he was one of the most effective penmen on his side; that entrance into the field of public affairs diverted him from the paths of quiet life; that after the war he continued both kinds of writing. He never ceased wholly to think and write about “affairs,” but more and more he speculated on the future, dreamed of the picturesque past, and played with themes of graceful and tender sentiment. He is very much worth reading as a commentator on his own times, and he is no less worth reading for the beauty of many poems quite without reference to the time or place in which they were written.
The long and fruitful colonial period must not be overlooked by any honest student of American literature, yet it may fairly be regarded as no more than a preparatory stage. It has the same relationship to the whole story as do the ancestry, boyhood, and education to the development of an individual. In the broad and brief survey attempted in these chapters a few leading facts have been reviewed about the youth of America: (1) Everything characteristic of the early settlers was derived directly from England, those in the South representing the aristocratic traditions of king and court, and those in the North reflecting the democratic revolt of the Puritans. As a natural consequence of these differences the writing of books soon waned in Virginia and the neighboring colonies, but developed consistently in Massachusetts and New England. (2) The attempt of the Puritans to force all New Englanders to think the same thoughts and worship in the same way was unsuccessful from the start, and the most interesting writers of the seventeenth century reveal the spread of disturbing influences. The first three chosen as examples are Thomas Morton, the frank and unscrupulous enemy of the Puritans; Nathaniel Ward, a sturdy Puritan who was alarmed at the growth of anti-Puritan influences; and Roger Williams, a deeply religious preacher, who rebelled against the control of the Church in New England just as he and others had formerly rebelled in the mother country. (3) Even in the first half century a good deal of verse was written: sometimes, as in the case of “The Day of Doom,” as a mere rimed statement of Puritan theology; but sometimes, as in the case of Anne Bradstreet and her followers, as an expression of real poetic feeling. (4) With the passage to the eighteenth century the community was clearly slipping from the grasp of the Puritans. Evidence is ample from three types of colonists: the Mathers, who were fighting a desperate but losing battle to retain control; Samuel Sewall, who, although a Puritan, was willing to accept reasonable changes; and Mrs. Sarah Kemble Knight, who said little at the time, but in her private journals showed the existence of growing disrespect for the old habits of thought. (5) Benjamin Franklin, whose work is more valuable than that of any of his predecessors, is also completely representative of the complete swing away from religious enthusiasm to a hard-headed worldliness which was prevailing in England in the eighteenth century. (6) On the other hand, Crèvecœur, writing just before the Revolution, sounded the note of thanksgiving to the Lord that America was different from the Old World, and emphasized what were the conditions of life that were worth fighting to save. (7) Finally, out of all the roster of talented writers during the Revolutionary War, Freneau was selected as the most gifted poet of the period, both as an indirect recorder of the conflict and as an author of poetry on native themes in no way related to the war.
BOOK LIST
General References
Adams, H. B. Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia. 1888.
Fiske, John. The Critical Period of American History. Chap. ii. 1888.
Otis, William Bradley. American Verse, 1625–1807. 1909.
Patterson, Samuel White. The Spirit of the American Revolution as Revealed in the Poetry of the Period (contains good bibliography). 1915.
Richardson, C. F. American Literature. Chaps. i, vi, viii. 1887.
Tucker, S. M. In chap. ix of Cambridge History of American Literature, Vol. I, Bk. I.
Tyler, M. C. The Literary History of the American Revolution, chaps. ix, xix, xx, xxi, xxvi, xxviii, xxix, xxxi, xxxii. 1897.
Van Tyne, C. H. The Loyalists in the American Revolution. 1902.
Wendell, Barrett. Literary History of America, chaps. vii, viii, ix. 1900.
For spirit of the times read Familiar Letters of John and Abigail Adams. 1876.
General Bibliography
Cambridge History of American Literature, Vol. I, pp. 457–467.
Individual Authors
Francis Hopkinson. Miscellaneous Essays and Occasional Writings. 1792. 3 vols. The latter half of the third volume contains in separate paging (1–204) his Poems on Several Subjects. (There has been no reprinting.)
Available Edition
The Old Farm and the New Farm: a Political Allegory (edited by B. J. Lossing). 1864.
Biography and Criticism
Hildeburn, C. R. A Biographical Sketch of Francis Hopkinson. 1878.
Marble, Mrs. A. R. Francis Hopkinson, Man of Affairs and Letters. New England Magazine, Vol. XXVII, p. 289.
Tyler, M. C. The Literary History of the American Revolution, Vol. I, chap. viii, pp. 163–171; chap. xii, pp. 279–292; chap. xxii, pp. 487–490; and Vol. II, chap. xxx, pp. 130–157.
Collections
Boynton, Percy H. American Poetry, pp. 35–42, 604–606.
Cairns, W. B. Early American Writers, pp. 372–383.
Duyckinck, E. A. and G. L. Cyclopedia of American Literature, Vol. I, pp. 209–219.
Stedman and Hutchinson. Library of American Literature, Vol. III, pp. 236–251.
John Trumbull. Poetical Works. 2 vols. Hartford, 1820. Progress of Dulness. Part I, The Rare Adventures of Tom Brainless, 1772; Part II, The Life and Character of Dick Hairbrain of Finical Memory, 1773; Part III, The Adventures of Miss Harriet Simper, 1773. M’Fingal: a Modern Epic Poem. Canto I; or, The Town Meeting (includes what is now Cantos I and II). 1776. Completed with Cantos III and IV. 1782.
Available Edition
M’Fingal; an Epic Poem (edited by B. J. Lossing). 1860, 1864, 1881.
Collections
Boynton, Percy H. American Poetry, pp. 43–57, 58–88, 606–610, 611–614.
Cairns, W. B. Early American Writers, pp. 395–408.
Duyckinck, E. A. and G. L. Cyclopedia of American Literature, Vol. I, pp. 308–319.
Stedman and Hutchinson. Library of American Literature, Vol. III, pp. 422–429; Vol. IV, pp. 89–92.
Philip Freneau. Poems. Printed for the Princeton Historical Association. F. L. Pattee, editor. 1902–1907. 3 vols.
Available Edition
Poems of Philip Freneau relating to the American Revolution. E. A. Duyckinck, editor. 1865.
Bibliography
A volume compiled by Victor H. Paltsits. 1903.
Biography and Criticism
Austin, Mary S. Philip Freneau, the Poet of the Revolution. 1901.
Delancey, E. F. Philip Freneau, the Huguenot Patriot-Poet, etc. Proceedings of the Huguenot Soc. of Amer., Vol. II, No. 2. 1891.
Forman, Samuel E. The Political Activities of Philip Freneau. Johns Hopkins University Studies, Ser. 20, Nos. 9, 10. 1902.
Collections
Boynton, Percy H. American Poetry, pp. 89–117, 614–618.
Cairns, W. B. Early American Writers, pp. 431–448.
Duyckinck, E. A. and G. L. Cyclopedia of American Literature, Vol. I, pp. 327–348.
Stedman and Hutchinson. Library of American Literature, Vol. III, pp. 445–457.
Timothy Dwight. There are no recent editions of Dwight. These appeared originally as follows: The Conquest of Canaan, 1784; The Triumph of Infidelity, 1788; Greenfield Hill, 1794; Travels in New England and New York, 1823.
Biography and Criticism
Dwight, W. T. and S. E. Memoir prefixed to Dwight’s Theology. 4 vols.
Sprague, W. B. The Life of Timothy Dwight, in Vol. XIV of Sparks’s Library of American Biography.
Sprague, W. B. Annals of the American Pulpit, Vol. II.
Tyler, M. C. Three Men of Letters, pp. 72–127. 1895.
Introduction to the Poems of Philip Freneau (edited by F. L. Pattee), Vol. I, pp. c, ci. 1902.
Collections
Boynton, Percy H. American Poetry, pp. 118–124, 618–621.
Cairns, W. B. Early American Writers, pp. 409–420.
Duyckinck, E. A. and G. L. Cyclopedia of American Literature, Vol. I, pp. 357–365.
Stedman and Hutchinson. Library of American Literature, Vol. III, pp. 426–429 and 463–483.
Joel Barlow. His epic is accessible only in early editions. His poetical work appeared originally as follows: The Vision of Columbus, 1787; The Columbiad, 1807; Hasty Pudding, 1847.
Biography and Criticism
Todd, C. B. Life and Letters of Joel Barlow. 1886.
Tyler, M. C. Three Men of Letters, pp. 131–180. 1895.
Collections
Boynton, Percy H. American Poetry, pp. 125–135, 621–624.
Cairns, W. B. Early American Writers, pp. 421–430.
Duyckinck, E. A. and G. L. Cyclopedia of American Literature, Vol. I, pp. 391–404.
Stedman and Hutchinson. Library of American Literature, Vol. III, pp. 422–429, and Vol. IV, pp. 46–57.
Literary Treatment of the Period
Drama
In Representative Plays by American Dramatists (edited by M. J. Moses), Vol. I. 1918.
The Group; a Farce, by Mrs. Mercy Warren.
The Battle of Bunker’s Hill, by H. H. Brackenridge.
The Fall of British Tyranny; or, American Liberty, by John Leacock.
The Politician Outwitted, by Samuel Low.
The Contrast, by Royall Tyler.3
André, by William Dunlap.[3]
Fiction
Churchill, Winston. Richard Carvel.
Cooper, J. F. Lionel Lincoln; or, The Leaguer of Boston.
Cooper, J. F. The Pilot.
Cooper, J. F. The Spy.
Ford, P. L. Janice Meredith.
Harte, Bret. Thankful Blossom.
Jewett, Sarah Orne. The Tory Lover.
Kennedy, J. P. Horse Shoe Robinson.
Mitchell, S. Weir. Hugh Wynne.
Simms, W. Gilmore. The Partisan.
Simms, W. Gilmore. The Scout.
Poetry
Poems of American History (edited by B. E. Stevenson), pp. 125–265.
American History by American Poets (edited by M. V. Wallington), Vol. I, pp. 125–293.
TOPICS AND PROBLEMS
In a survey course enough material is presented for Hopkinson, Trumbull, Dwight, and Barlow in the collections mentioned in the Book List for this chapter. The only reprint available of Lewis’s interesting “Journey from Patapsco to Annapolis” is in “American Poetry” (P. H. Boynton, editor), pp. 24–29. These poems are chiefly significant for the combination of English form and American subject matter.
Compare Trumbull’s comments on the education of girls with the corresponding passage by Mrs. Malaprop, in Sheridan’s “The Rivals,” and with Fitz-Greene Halleck’s comments on the education of Fanny, in the poem of that name (see “American Poetry,” pp. 127, 128, and 155, 156).
Compare Dwight’s “Farmer’s Advice to the Villagers,” “Greenfield Hill,” Pt. VI, with Benjamin Franklin’s “The Way to Wealth.”
Compare the nationalistic note in the seventh and ninth books of Barlow’s “Vision of Columbus” with that in Timrod’s “Ethnogenesis” and that in Moody’s “Ode in Time of Hesitation.” Do the dates of the three poems suggest a progressive change? (See “American Poetry,” pp. 123, 349, and 577.)
Read Freneau’s more bitter war satires in comparison with Jonathan Odell’s “Congratulation” and “The American Times,” for which see “American Poetry,” pp. 78–83.
Read Freneau’s more jovial war satires in comparison with Whittier’s “Letter from a Missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church” (“American Poetry,” p. 255); John R. Thompson’s “On to Richmond” (“American Poetry,” p. 325); Edmund C. Stedman’s “How Old Brown took Harper’s Ferry” (“American Poetry,” p. 317); and Lowell’s “Biglow Papers.”
Read Freneau’s “Pictures of Columbus” in comparison with Lowell’s “Columbus” (“American Poetry,” p. 382); Lanier’s “Sonnets on Columbus” (“American Poetry,” p. 458); and Joaquin Miller’s “Columbus” (“American Poetry,” p. 564).
“The Progress of Balloons” derives its title from a whole series of preceding “progress” poems. Cite others and compare them as you can.
With reference to Freneau’s diction in nature passages as compared with that of Ames and Lewis in the text, read Wordsworth’s essay on “Poetic Diction” prefatory to the lyrical ballads of 1798, with which Freneau agreed and which he anticipated in certain of his poems.
CHAPTER VII
THE EARLY DRAMA
In the growth of most national literatures the theater has developed side by side with the drama, the stage doing for the play what the printing press did for the essay, poem, and novel. But in America, the land of a transplanted civilization, the order was changed and the first plays were supplied from abroad just as the other forms of literature were. In the history of the American stage, therefore, the successive steps were the presentation of English plays by American amateurs in regular audience rooms with improvised stages; then the development of semiprofessional and wholly professional companies who played short seasons at irregular intervals; then the erection of special playhouses; and finally the formation of more permanent professional companies, both English and American, – all of which took place in the course of nearly two generations before the emergence of any native American drama. Recent investigations have so frequently pushed back the years of first performances, playhouses, and plays that now one can offer such dates only as subject to further revision.
According to the “Cambridge History of American Literature,” “there seem to have been theatrical performances in this country since 1703.” Paul Leicester Ford in his “Washington and the Theater” says, “that there was play-acting in New York, and in Charleston, South Carolina, before 1702, are unquestioned facts.” In 1718 Governor Spottswood of Virginia gave an entertainment on the king’s birthday, the feature of which was a play, probably acted by the students of William and Mary College, as there are references to later events of this sort. The Virginia governor’s patronage bore different fruit from the early indorsement of playing in staid Massachusetts, for Samuel Sewall recorded in his diary of March 2, 1714, a protest at the acting of a play in the council chamber. “Let not Christian Boston,” he admonished, “goe beyond Heathen Rome in the practice of Shamefull Vanities.” On the other hand, Williamsburg, Virginia, had its own theater before 1720, New York enjoyed professional acting and a playhouse by 1732, and in Charleston, South Carolina, the use of the courtroom was frequent in the two seasons before the opening of a theater in the winter of 1736. These slight beginnings, with further undertakings in Philadelphia, doubtless gave Lewis Hallam, the London actor, courage to venture over with his company in 1752. With his twelve players he brought a repertory of twenty plays and eight farces, the majority of which had never been presented in America; and since the year of their arrival the American theater has had a consecutive and broadening place in the life of the people.
The beginnings of drama in America, to distinguish them from the early life of the theater, are not quite clearly known. The first romantic drama, and the first play written by an American and produced by a professional company, was Thomas Godfrey’s “The Prince of Parthia,” completed by 1759 and acted in 1767 at the Southwark Theater, Philadelphia. The first drama on native American material – an unproduced problem play – was Robert Rogers’s “Ponteach,” published in London in 1766. The first American comedy to be produced by a professional company was Royall Tyler’s “The Contrast,” acted in 1787 at the John Street Theater, New York. The first professional American playwright was William Dunlap (1766–1839), author and producer, who wrote, adapted, and translated over sixty plays, operas, sketches, farces, and interludes, of which at least fifty were produced and nearly thirty have been published. The first actor and playwright of more than local prominence was John Howard Payne (1791–1852), more original than Dunlap and equally prolific, with one or two great successes and eighteen published plays to his credit. The history of the American drama, as yet unwritten, will be a big work when it is fully done, for the output has been very large. Three hundred and seventy-eight plays are known to have been published by 1830 and nearly twice that number to have been played by 1860. In the remainder of this chapter, the aim of which is to induce study of plays within the reach of the average college class, four dramas will be discussed because they are interesting in themselves and because they are early representatives of types which still prevail.
The first is “The Prince of Parthia,” a romantic tragedy by Thomas Godfrey (1736–1763). He was the son of a scientist, a youth of cultured companions, West the painter and Hopkinson the poet-composer, and his almost certain attendance at performances of the American company of actors led him, in addition to his juvenile poems, to make his ambitious attempt at drama. “The Prince of Parthia” is evidently imitative, and yet no more so than most American poems, essays, novels, and plays written in the generation to which Godfrey belonged until his early death at the age of twenty-seven. The Hallam and American companies had played more of Shakespeare than any other one thing, somewhat of Beaumont and Fletcher, and more or less of Restoration drama; and these combined influences appear in Godfrey’s work. There are traces from “Hamlet,” signs of “Macbeth,” evidences of “The Maid’s Tragedy,” and responses to the Restoration interest in pseudo-oriental subjects. Yet the play should not be dismissed with these comments as though they were a condemnation. What is more to the point is the fact that “The Prince” is very admirable as a piece of imitative writing. The verse is fluent and at times stately. The construction as a whole is well considered. The characters are consistent, and their actions are based on sufficient motives. Many a later American dramatist fell far short of Godfrey both in excellence of style and in firmness of structure and characterization. Had Godfrey lived and had he passed out of his natural deference for models, he might have done dramatic writing quite equal to that of many a well-known successor. The twentieth-century mind is unaccustomed to the “tragedy of blood.” A play with a king and two princely sons at once in love with the same captive maiden, a jealous queen, a vengeful stepson, and a court full of intriguing nobles, a story which ends with the accumulating deaths of the six leading characters, hardly appeals to theatergoers accustomed to dramas which are more economical in their material. But Godfrey should be compared with his own contemporaries, and, all things considered, he stands the comparison well. The type of poetic drama he attempted reoccurs later in the work of Robert Montgomery Bird, Nathaniel Parker Willis, George Henry Boker, and Julia Ward Howe, and reappears in the present generation in plays by such men as Richard Hovey and Percy Mackaye.